'Pure' or 'Wake-Up-Call' Contagion? Another Look at the EMU Sovereign Debt Crisis
26 Pages Posted: 30 Aug 2012
Date Written: August 24, 2012
Abstract
We test whether the sharp increase in sovereign spreads of Euro area countries with respect to Germany observed after the burst of the Greek crisis on October 2009 is due to a deterioration of the macroeconomic and fiscal scenarios, or to some form of financial contagion. More in detail, we consider several forms of contagion, distinguishing between an increased attention devoted by investors to those variables which ultimately determine the creditworthiness of a sovereign borrower ("wake-up call" contagion) and behaviour disconnected from fundamentals ("pure" contagion). We consider among the fundamentals also indicators of domestic and external imbalances which, before the crisis, were ignored by economists and policy-makers alike. We find evidence of "wake-up call" contagion. Instead, we do not find evidence of "pure" contagion. However, some countries, notably Italy and Spain, experienced with the crisis a large overshooting of their spreads with respect to the new long-term levels.
Keywords: contagion. EMU debt crisis, panel cointegration
JEL Classification: G12, G15
Suggested Citation: Suggested Citation
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